Hands-on with the HTC 10 [VIDEO]

Earlier today, the HTC 10 was finally made official. We’ve been waiting a long time for HTC’s entry in the 2016 flagship race. It seems our patience has been rewarded. Tonight, the HTC 10 made its way into our hands for the first time. Here’s our first impressions.

The build quality is right on par with everything HTC makes. It looks great and feels great. The all-metal design is back, as you would expect, but this time there is a huge chamfer on the back edges. It’s a distinct look, and it adds to the comfort of holding the phone.

On the front is a 5.2-inch Quad HD LCD display. HTC consistently has some of the best LCD displays, and this one is no different. Colors look great and it’s far more true-to-life than an AMOLED display. The one trend that HTC didn’t jump on is the Always-on display.

Inside the HTC 10 is the Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB of RAM, and 3000 mAh battery. This is very close to the set up on the Samsung Galaxy S7 and LG G5. So far, performance has been just as exceptional. HTC claims the battery will last 2-days, but that’s yet to be seen. As long as it’s not worse than the S7 and G5, we’ll be happy.

HTC’s achilles heel has been cameras lately. The 10 attempts to fix this problem with a 12MP camera on the back and 5MP camera on the front. From what we’ve seen so far, the cameras seem pretty decent. AN interesting feature is OIS in the front-facing camera. The camera software has been slimmed down a lot, as well.

Speaking of software, if you like the look of stock Android you’ll like HTC’s interface. For the most part, HTC is getting out of the way and letting Google do their thing. This is best demonstrated in the lack of duplicate apps. So many phones come with two calendars, two galleries, etc. HTC doesn’t include their own version of stock apps, which is a welcomed decision.

All in all, the HTC 10 is shaping up to be a real contender in 2016. They had to go all out, and that’s exactly what they did. Obviously, we’ll learn a lot more about the 10 in our time with it. Stay tuned to Phandroid for much more coverage.